Patterns

Fingerprinting may intimidate crooks, but businesses don't want to scare off law-abiding customers too. So they're trying to put a positive spin on a procedure long used mainly on criminals. Brochures extolling the "Thumbs-Up Identification Program" can be found at branches of First Union bank, which requires thumbprints for cashing checks presented by people without accounts.

An albino variety of California kingsnake popular in the pet trade has infested the Canary Islands, decimating native bird, mammal and lizard species that have had no time to evolve evasive patterns in what was once a stable ecology northwest of Africa. Unchecked by natural predators, the kingsnake population has exploded, say U.S. Geological Survey biologists helping the Spanish archipelago attempt to control the highly adaptive and secretive predators. "The kingsnakes in question are from a species found in San Diego and bred in captivity," said Robert Fisher, a research biologist with the USGS.

Traditionalists who believe that plaids are for stadium blankets and school uniforms are in for a surprise this fall. The home furnishing and fashion industries are embracing the variegated pattern in all its forms: authentic tartans, classic glens and Western ombres, windowpanes and buffalo checks. "From outerwear to underwear, plaid is the whimsical pattern that ties every category of fall fashion together," says Chip Tolbert, fashion director for the Men's Fashion Assn.

AUSTIN, Texas - President Obama has tried to model Abraham Lincoln's team of rivals and Teddy Roosevelt's power of the bully pulpit. He's lauded Ronald Reagan's communication skills and linked himself to the Kennedy clan. He's praised his onetime nemesis, George W. Bush, as well as his onetime adversary, Bill Clinton. But Obama has rarely cozied up to the predecessor some argue did more than any other modern president to pave the way for his election as the nation's first black president: Lyndon B. Johnson.

The pattern of stripes is as different from one zebra to the next as the sprinkling of spots is on one leopard compared to its cousin. The same holds true of snowflakes and even the circles and swirls comprising fingerprints. These differences, it has been surmised for years, are likely due to chance. But for the first time, three physicists at the University of California have shown mathematically that this age-old observation is probably true, at least for patterns on the surface of water.

Celebrities die in threes. The moon landing was a hoax. Climate change is a myth. And President Obama? Not born on U.S. soil. Oh, how we love our conspiracy theories, our superstitions, our beliefs that fly in the face of facts, logic and science. When asked about climate change, half of Americans recently polled by the Pew Research Center and the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science said they didn't believe in it. (Nearly all scientists said they did.) And how many of us, when Michael Jackson died, thought yes, of course, he completes the Ed McMahon-Farrah Fawcett trio?

Sea levels are rising, but not in a geographically uniform pattern, says a new study published online on July 11 in the journal Nature Geoscience. Focusing on the Indian Ocean, researchers from the University of Colorado and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, both in Boulder, found that increases in sea levels in some regions corresponded with declines in other areas. Sea level increases were significantly greater than the global mean at midocean islands such as the Mascarenhas Archipelago as well as the coasts of Indonesia and Sumatra and the northern Indian Ocean.

They may not be old enough to talk, but babies less than a week old know how to cry in their native language. Researchers have known that infants have the ability to mimic speech starting around 12 weeks of age. Babies also show a preference for spoken language that mirrors the rhythm, melody and intensity patterns of their mother tongue. But when they're too young to control their vocal cords or the muscles that shape the mouth to make specific sounds, how can babies demonstrate that they're tuned in to the chatter around them?

Re " 'Wikitorial' Pulled Due to Vandalism," June 21: Ward Cunningham's origination of the wiki in 1995 for informal collaborative inputs on programming patterns, a disciplined purpose, makes sense. The efforts of the L.A. Times to extend the idea to undisciplined opinions, primarily political opinions, was doomed from the start. Bill Gourlay Westlake Village

Australia aboriginal artists tell fantastic stories about the long-ago doings of beasts and humans. Using the simplest of alphabets--constellations of tiny dots, relieved by curved and straight lines--these "dreamings" are quite irresistible. Paintings couch mythic versions of history in minimalist patterns and muted color that inevitably remind the viewer of contemporary art. Indeed, although these patterns were painted on the earth for thousands of years, their rendering in acrylic on canvas dates back only to the early 1970s.

Small tsunami waves and other unusual "water movements" arrived on the California coast Wednesday following an 8.2 earthquake that struck Chile's northern coast. Although officials stressed that no tsunami warning had been issued for California or the West Coast, the abnormal wave heights, tide fluctuations and current changes may have surprised boaters, they said. The first waves to strike California that were connected to Tuesday night's South American earthquake may have hit La Jolla about 4 a.m., said Bill Knight, an oceanographer with the National Tsunami Warning Center based in Alaska.

WASHINGTON - Federal regulators twice declined to investigate faulty ignition switches in General Motors Co. cars that led to 13 deaths - even though one official found "a pattern" of problems, according to a new congressional report. The report, released Sunday, added fresh details to a controversy that has shaken the revitalized automaker. Already under fire for lengthy delays in recalling the vehicles, GM also was accused in the report of allowing the defective part to be installed in millions of vehicles after testing showed it did not meet the company's own specifications.

WASHINGTON - Two-fifths of the nation's public school districts offer no preschool programs, and most of those that do offer only part-day programs. Black students account for less than a fifth of those in preschool across the nation but make up almost half of the students who are suspended from preschool multiple times. Those results from the first comprehensive survey in nearly 15 years of civil rights data from the 97,000 U.S. public schools show they remain marked by inequities.

The investigator looking into the abrupt departure of Miami Dolphins tackle Jonathan Martin released his months-long report Friday, concluding that three starters on the offensive line "engaged in a pattern of harassment" directed not only at Martin but other players and an assistant trainer. The 144-page report, prepared by independent investigator Ted Wells, identifies linemen Richie Incognito, John Jerry and Mike Pouncey as the instigators in the locker room. Incognito, a Pro Bowl guard who recently finished a three-month suspension, is a free agent and isn't expected to return to the Dolphins.

He had grown weary of the sportsmanlike platitudes and calm explanations. He had just spent 15 minutes discussing the most stunning upset of his career with a steady stare, and enough was enough. Just before exiting the dank basement interview area at the Adler Arena Skating Center on Wednesday, U.S. Olympic speedskater Shani Davis inexplicably stopped one more time. In front of a handful of remaining reporters, he seethed. "I don't know what's going on....I was skating hard, so hard....I was ready for it, man, like I was ready for this," he said.

About 12,000 feet above the state of Washington, aerospace giant Boeing Co. is flying a 747 jumbo jet painted in the colors of the NFL's Seattle Seahawks in the pattern of a massive “12.” Check the flight tracker out here . The flight is a publicity move by Boeing, which is a sponsor of the Seattle Seahawks football team. The Seahawks are set to play the Denver Broncos in next Sunday's Super Bowl XLVIII. The 747-8 is owned by Boeing and is being used for flight testing.

Q: How do they make the patterns on the grass on baseball diamonds and other fields? A: The process is called lawn striping and is actually quite easy. The key is a roller attached right behind the mower that bends the grass over. Checkerboard patterns are produced, for example, by first mowing in an alternating north-to-south, south-to-north pattern, then going over it again east to west and west to east. This alternates the way the grass bends.

Sam Hall Kaplan is so right when he says what is needed is "planning on a block-by-block neighborhood level involving those who will be affected" (July 28). As I see it, the No. 1 problem is knowledge, and I'm not talking about those participating not being trained as architects, landscape architects and planners. What I am referring to is knowledge of what good environment consists of in terms that everyone can understand. Fortunately, Christopher Alexander has put together a comprehensive and easily understood language of design called "A Pattern Language."

The Webb Schools, a private high school in Claremont, is a magnet for college recruiters from around the country and the world. This fall, 113 Ivy League and other schools sent representatives to the campus - more than the 106 students in the senior class. At Jefferson High School, a low-income public school with 280 seniors in South Los Angeles, eight recruiters from local universities showed up. Recruiters' visits often are an important first contact for students to discover campuses far beyond their hometowns and for the colleges to discover talented applicants.

Joaquin Phoenix refused to hug it out. On an overcast November afternoon, in a $13-million Hollywood home with a skyline view stretching from downtown L.A. to the Palos Verdes peninsula, the notoriously press-averse actor was throwing a fit of pique - aimed squarely at me. He had tolerated more than an hour of my questions. I was interviewing him with Spike Jonze, writer-director of "Her," the idiosyncratic yet affecting sci-fi romance in which Phoenix stars. "Her" reaches theaters in limited release on Wednesday but has already been crowned best film of 2013 by the National Board of Review and tied for best film honors from the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.